Whether you're a longtime Swamp Eye® Light Bar or Swamp Eye® Submersible user — or completely new to the Swamp Eye® series — there’s one undeniable fact: the new 160W Swamp Eye® HD Bowfishing Light is unlike anything you've ever seen or experienced before.
Watch the 160W Swamp Eye® HD Release Video
Quick overview of the redesign, performance improvements, and new wiring harness system.
Table of Contents
Re-Designed from the Ground Up
A Brighter, More Efficient Bowfishing Light
Optimized Color Tone Adjustability
All-New Building Block Wiring Harness
Tested & Proven by the Industry’s Best
Customer Footage (Real Bowfishing Environments)
Our Inspiration
The inspiration behind the 160W Swamp Eye® HD Bowfishing Light was simple: build a single light that maximizes visibility in any water conditions — from muddy Gulf Coast flounder flats to crystal-clear rivers and bowfishing lakes across the country.
Over the years, this idea has evolved beyond color tone adjustability. We are relentlessly focused on building a light that delivers a better total user experience — from the moment you unbox it, to mounting it on your boat, to the moment it illuminates the water.
We wanted:
- An installation process anyone can do
- A wiring system that’s modular and not permanent
- A light that runs on battery or small generator power without sacrificing brightness
- A highly efficient design that outperforms ultra-high wattage bulbs
- Saltwater-resistant plug-and-play connections
That vision became the foundation of the Swamp Eye® HD redesign.
Re-Designed from the Ground Up
The task we set was ambitious — and in some ways, nearly impossible:
- Build a significantly brighter light without requiring a massive generator.
- Maintain true adjustable color tone for all water types.
- Provide easy, plug-and-play installation with saltwater-resistant connectors.
- Ensure full compatibility for both battery and generator power.
To achieve this, we threw away past designs and started at zero.
A Brighter, More Efficient Bowfishing Light
One truth we’ve learned: nearly every bowfishing or flounder gigging problem can be traced back to inefficiency. Customers know they want more brightness, longer run-times, and smaller generators — but efficiency is the real driver behind all of these.
What Drives Efficiency?
In lighting systems, efficiency is determined by component quality, circuit board design, and how well power is converted into usable light (luminous efficacy).
Typical power factor ranges:
- Low-end outdoor/gigging/bowfishing lights: 40%–60%
- High-end LEDs: 70%–85%
Power Factor = the percentage of power that becomes actual light.
For example:
- A “200W” light with a 70% power factor draws 200 watts but produces only 140 watts of usable light output.
How Efficient Did We Get?
The 160W Swamp Eye® HD Bowfishing Light achieved 99% efficiency. This means:
- A 160W HD produces brightness comparable to 250+ watt LEDs
- It rivals the output of a 350–400W high pressure sodium light
- It meets or exceeds the output of typical 400+ watt metal halide or halogen systems
- You get full warm-to-cool white adjustability at this output level
- You can run it on a small generator or 24V battery setup
Put simply: more brightness, less power, more options.
Optimized Color Tone Adjustability
Swamp Eye® pioneered adjustable-color bowfishing lighting over a decade ago. With the HD re-design, our challenge was to maintain — and improve — color tone flexibility without sacrificing brightness or efficiency.
To achieve this, we:
- Re-engineered our LED arrays
- Optimized circuit boards for cleaner electrical flow
- Focused on the most effective color temperatures for real-world water conditions
Whether you’re chasing gar in Louisiana, flounder gigging in Texas, bully netting lobster in Florida, stalking bigheads in Indiana, gigging suckers in Missouri, or chasing buffalo in Minnesota — the HD’s color spectrum is tuned for the waters you fish.
Power Flexibility
The Swamp Eye® HD can run on 24V battery power or 110/120V AC generator power, giving you ultimate flexibility. Unlike older systems, switching between battery and generator is simple thanks to improved, saltwater-resistant plug connectors.
Easy Installation
In the past, linking multiple lights to one control dial required permanent custom wiring or soldering. For customers still figuring out their boat layout, this was frustrating — and often irreversible.
One of our first design goals was to eliminate this. The result:
All-New Building Block Wiring Harness
The Building Block Harness lets you connect, disconnect, rearrange, expand, or re-configure your lighting system in seconds. No soldering, no permanent setup, no special tools.
You can run:
- All lights on one dial
- Left side only
- Right side only
- Console-mounted controls
- Any configuration you imagine
Here’s a complete guide to the harness with examples: Building Block Harness Guide
5 Components:
-
Control Dial
Turns lights on/off and adjusts color tone from warm to cool white. -
Control Dial Extension Lead
Extend the dial location or space your lights as far as needed. -
Tee Connector
Connect multiple lights to one single control dial. -
Power Cord Extension Lead
Extend power cords to simplify mounting and routing. -
Power Cord Lead with Battery Terminals
Quickly switch between battery and generator power. -
Bluetooth Controller
Control your lights wirelessly using the OutriggerGo App — brightness, color gradation, presets, strobe, and rock lights.
Tested & Proven by the Industry’s Best
Customer Footage: Swamp Eye® HD in Real Conditions
Real customer-submitted footage showing the 160W Swamp Eye® HD lighting up the water in true bowfishing environments — no filters, no editing, just raw performance.
We partnered with some of the top guides and tournament bowfishermen during every stage of development. The HD was tested in brutal conditions — saltwater, freshwater, long nights, heavy pressure, and constantly changing environments.
From concept to final production, this was a nearly two-year project. We discarded earlier designs completely and rebuilt the HD from scratch using real-world feedback gathered over many years.
Whether you fish saltwater or freshwater, we can confidently say the HD has been pushed harder, longer, and more aggressively than any light we’ve ever built.
We continue to develop advanced controls and accessories — starting with the Foot Control Switch for hands-free operation, and the OutriggerGo App. More add-ons are already under development.
Want to see how others are mounting the HD? Check out Mounting Ideas for Swamp Eye® HD Bowfishing Lights.
Quick Navigation: Efficiency • Color Tone • Power Options • Installation • Testing & Durability
4 Comments
Hi Paul – thanks for commenting. The Swamp Eye HDs are commonly run on 24V battery systems. It can certainly be done with great effect. As far as run time goes, it ultimately depends on the amp hour capacity of your battery and how many lights you plan on running. For grins, a typical battery setup we have done is 4 Swamp Eye HDs on the front of a boat that is running 150 amp hour batteries. In this particular setup, you can expect upwards of 6 hours of run time.
How long will swamp eye HD run on a 24v battery
When comparing Swamp Eye HDs to High Pressure Sodium (HPS), there are several factors to consider.
1 It takes HPS roughly 5 minutes to warm up and reach maximum brightness once they are turned on. Swamp Eye HDs reach max brightness instantaneously. This feature, paired with our foot control switch, can make jumping on light sensitive or highly pressured fish with Swamp Eye HDs a breeze.
2 HPS are one single color, closely matched to the 2000k output of our warmest color setting. The Swamp Eye HDs are adjustable in color from an HPS-like warm white to metal halide-like cool white and anywhere in-between. This allows you to have the best visibility no matter what water conditions are.
3 HPS are 110V AC from the source and must be wired in carefully or something as simple as loose wire can be very dangerous on an aluminum boat. Our Swamp Eye HDs are low voltage at the light source and meet American Boat and Yacht Counsel codes for safe electrical wiring on boats. They are compatible with our building block wire harness, which not only makes wire connections more safe, but also makes wiring a breeze for someone who knows little about wiring.
4 Swamp Eye HDs at only 160W of power draw can reach a brightness level closely equivalent to that of a 400W HPS bulb. If you have a digital ballast for your HPS and run them on 100% setting, it will be close. If you run your digital ballast on 75% setting, the Swamp Eye HDs are clearly brighter. Typical HPS settings are 50%, 75%, 100%.
5 HPS lights have glass bulbs which can rattle loose or break over time, especially if you hit limbs while driving. The Swamp Eye HDs have a rigid cast in place aluminum housing and polycarbonate lens, which are capable of standing up to hard direct impacts. Side story: we recently had a customer hit a telephone pole on the open bay traveling 30-40 mph in south Texas. The impact was square on where a Swamp Eye HD was mounted on the corner of his boat. The light and lens itself were perfectly fine, but the bracket bent and the bolt sheared. The customer replaced the bracket and the bolt and is still using the light to this day.
Due to these reasons, among many others, we’ve had a lot of customers who have previously used Metal Halide and/or HPS bowfishing lights switch over to the Swamp Eye HDs. We have honestly had great feedback from these folks and have no reservation recommending them to you. The Swamp Eye HDs are incredibly bright and give you the option of running on battery or a much smaller generator.
How do these compare to the superiority of High Pressure Sodium lights?